Odds against top recruits becoming future NFL Pro Bowlers

Leonard Fournette is the nation’s top recruit, but he’s not guaranteed to be Pro Bowl player at the NFL level. (Credit: Kim Klement – USA TODAY Sports)

Today is National Signing Day. It’s the first day high school hopefuls can sign their national letters of intent to attend the university of their dreams.

Each year there are top talents touted as future NFL stars . Not everyone succeeds, even the recruits who are considered elite. In fact, very few of the recruits considered to be top talents turn out to be stars in the NFL.

According to ESPN and 247Sports.com, this year’s top recruiting target was RB Leonard Fournette (New Orleans, La./St. Augustine). Fournette, who committed to LSU, has at least three seasons before he can entertain thoughts of joining the NFL. Once he can, there is an 11-percent chance he’ll even develop into a future Pro Bowl player.

From 2002 to ’10, only 10 players ranked as Top 10 recruits, courtesy of Rivals.com’s rankings, were eventually named to the NFL’s Pro Bowl.

Here is the list of players from the Top 10 of each class which played more than four years in the NFL or are currently in the league:

Some of these players, particularly the younger ones, still aren’t guaranteed to be in the league two or three years from now.

Even those players ranked as the top recruit in their class are not automatically guaranteed to make it in the NFL. In 2005, Derrick Williams was considered a program-changing recruit for the Penn State Nittany Lions. Williams played two seasons with the Detroit Lions. He made nine receptions. He spent this past season with the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts.

The percentages presented seem promising. Eleven-percent of the aforementioned players became Pro Bowlers. Sixty-percent either played four years in the NFL or are still in the league. These numbers may look favorable to young recruits aspiring to play in the NFL. Yet, the average NFL career is 3.5 years.

Being a Top 10 recruit is merely the first step. There is plenty of work to be done by those players over the next three or four years to fulfill their potential as an NFL player and future star.